Jewelry Designer Profile: Dara Dubinet Natural Jewelry

Dara's collections are made from both raw and cut stones. You'll find lots of gemstones, like emeralds, rubies, yellow beryl, turquoise, amethyst, citrine and many, many more. She works with diamonds, but the diamonds provide accent -- it's the colorful gems that are the stars of Dara's jewelry. Settings vary but include gold, platinum and silver.

The Solomon collection (named for Dara's mentor, Peter Solomon) is made up of bold, richly colored pieces. The Raw collection uses stones straight from the earth (minus the matrix that conceals their colors). Dara's Exceptional collection includes unique jewelry that doesn't fit into other categories. Visit her Web site for a look at all current collections.

Look online and you'll see that you can browse Dara's jewelry in four different ways:

• by collection
• by color
• by jewelry type (amulets, rings, necklaces, bracelets, etc.)
• by its traditional ability to influence your life (with explanations for each stone)

Dara's jewelry is not inexpensive. You'll find earrings and a few other pieces in the $200 range, and it trends upwards from there.

We'll always see celebrities draped in diamonds and platinum when they attend public events, but have you noticed lately that more of them are wearing natural stones of all sorts? That trend is apparent when celebs are on their own, away from the spotlight.

Celebrities have discovered Dara's jewelry. Madonna wears her power gypsy rings -- like the black onyx ring in this photo. Cameron Diaz and Charlize Theron seem to love her turquoise rings and the rings with boldly colored pink stones. Leighton Meester chose Dara's gold and pave perfect bangles for an important photo shoot.

Dara's red carpet collection is scheduled to launch in 2009 and will include pieces that retail from $50,000 to $500,000.

A quote from Dara:

Nature has already spent over 4 billion years creating the most beautiful of treasures. My job is simply to embrace these natural, healing stones with precious metals of Gold and Silver, creating unique, one-of-a-kind wearable talismans.

Visit Dara's Web site to see all of her jewelry. Every item is one-of-a-kind, and settings are designed to work with the natural qualities of each gem -- a stone isn't overly manipulated in order to make it "fit" into a specific setting.

A stunner, this piece combines the popular look of open links with a richly colored gemstone.

From Dara: "Feel hopeful and optimistic. Remember your dreams and make them reality."

From Dara: "Citrine is a stone used to attract abundance."

From Dara: "Accept who and where you are at every waking moment."

From Dara: "Bring together your mind, body and soul."

Pave set diamonds are in the band of this platinum ring.

Three chunks of green turquoise appear inside the sterling silver links of this handcrafted necklace.